Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

S. Th. II-II, q. 23, a. 3, 4, 5, 6; I-II, q. 66, a. 6; De Virt., q. 2, a. 4 and 5; III Sent., d. 27, q. 2, a. 2.

857. Charity is a virtue because it is a habit making man perfect, for it unites him to God, who is the supreme rule of human acts. It is a special virtue because it has a special object, namely the goodness of God in himself, inasmuch as he is the object of supernatural beatitude. It is one virtue because charity has one end and one principal reason for loving God, ourselves and our neighbor, namely the divine goodness which he wishes to communicate to us all; — and because there is one communication of eternal beatitude upon which the friendship of charity is founded.

Let it not be said that friendship is not a virtue. For S. Thomas replies, Q. D. de Virt., q. 2, a. 2, ad 8: "(Human) friendship is not posited as a virtue, but as consequent to virtue, because from this very fact that someone has virtue and loves the good of reason, it follows from the very inclination of virtue that he loves those like himself, namely the virtuous in whom the good of reason flourishes. But the friendship which is toward God, inasmuch as he is blessed and the author of (supernatural) beatitude, must be set above the virtues which are ordered to that beatitude. And therefore since it is not consequent to the other virtues but a preamble..., it must be that it itself is a virtue per se". Likewise II-II, q. 23, a. 3, ad 1: "Friendship... is not a virtue per se distinct from others. For it does not have the notion of the praiseworthy and honest except from the object, namely inasmuch as it is founded on the honesty of the virtues; which is clear from this, that not every friendship has the notion of the praiseworthy and honest, as is clear in the friendship of the delightful and useful. Whence virtuous friendship is more something consequent to virtue than a virtue¹. Nor is it similar with charity, which is founded principally not on human virtue but on divine goodness".

858. Charity is the most excellent virtue. — For

1) it is more excellent than the moral virtues, because it attains God himself;

2) it is also more excellent than the theological [virtues]

a) on the part of the formal object, because it more and more perfectly attains God: for faith and hope attain him inasmuch as from him there comes to us either the knowledge of truth or the possession of good, but charity attains him in himself, so that it rests in him, not however as some good coming to us from him; whence faith and hope rest on God revealing and helping, charity rests on God in himself;

b) on the part of the condition of the material object, because charity is more proximate to God: for faith and hope include a distance from God, and imperfection, since faith is about God unseen, and hope about God not possessed; but charity is about God who is already in some way united and possessed to us through the love of friendship, and will be fully possessed: "for the loved is in the lover and the lover through affection is drawn to the union of the loved" (cfr. Col. III, 14; I Cor. XIII, 13).

In one word: faith and hope of themselves include imperfection, namely either obscurity, or the absence of an arduous good; charity however of itself induces no imperfection. Whence those will be brought to nothing in the fatherland, not so charity, which there, by reason of the object present and seen intuitively, is perfected.

859. They object to the aforesaid doctrine, that faith resides in a nobler power: the intellect, but charity only in the will. — The reply is given: cognition is naturally perfected according as the object understood is in the intellect, and therefore the perfection of cognition is measured by the dignity of the object understood; volition however is perfected according as the will is inclined to the thing as to a term, and specifically love according as the one loving is drawn to the thing loved, and therefore the perfection of volition and love is measured by the perfection of the thing toward which it tends. Now the things which are below us are in a nobler way in the intellect than in themselves (because each thing is in another according to the mode of that in which it is); but the things which are above us are in a nobler way in themselves than in our intellect. And therefore cognition is more perfect than love of those things which are below us; but of those which are above us, as God, love is more perfect than cognition. Whence charity is more excellent than faith, according to Eph. III, 19: the charity of Christ which surpasses knowledge. Hence God can be loved in himself without being known in himself. — So it is in the state of the way; otherwise in the fatherland: for in the beatific vision (by which we see God in himself), God is not represented in our intellect by a species received in us, but is seen immediately in himself without a created and received species, whence the intellect is united to the thing according as it is in itself, to God as he is in himself. And therefore vision is more perfect than love.